Bailaviborita--
Sir, your post is food for thought.
Recently, while getting reacquainted with an academic historian, we spent a few moments patting ourselves on the back as we agreed that few can match historians for critical thinking skill sets.
A bit later, the conversation (re) turned to the ongoing inability of traditional types of historians to respond to the "Cultural Turn," the deepening rifts within the profession, the continuing decline of the craft (history majors aren't in high demand in the job market), and our respective research projects--both over researched, over thought, and, from our perspectives, long overdue.
During my short time in the private sector, my critical thinking skills have contributed in small ways to the development of solutions to complex issues--to the astonishment of some software engineers (a self-confident lot
). But I'd always point out (if someone else didn't beat me to it) that I'd been wrong the previous three dozen times.
Then again, if a certain company had listened to me on the viability of a digital set-top box as a platform for 'digital convergence,' on the short comings of the 'lean back' experience, on the price points of cable modems, and on the advantages of saying 'no' to customers, maybe they'd still be the masters of their own destiny. Or if another company had been a bit more attentive to my observation that the word 'strategy' was being used haphazardly, it would not have needed to lay off about 14% of their workforce and slash the pay of those who remained by as much as a third. (But I'm not bitter.)